Hive Ship
The venerable generation ships of the migratory Wraith have been turned into vast engines of war by the New Order, reflecting their glory days during the era of the Wraith-Ancient war. Their crew accommodations have shrunk to a fraction of what as, and have been replaced by power generation to fuel the endless thirst of it's systems, and it's hull armour has grown and expanded to cover every weakness and window that might provide a way in for the enemy. It’s directed energy armament virtually erased in favour of extensive LAC facilities. Specifications Class: Carrier Designation: Spire Type: Ship of the Wall Role: Singleship Base of Operation Users: New Order With: meters Length: 2600 meters Hull: Biopolymer Exoscheleton and Internal Supports. Powerplant The Spire is powered by an array of redundant sub space taps and partially by direct energy extraction from it’s fusion engines. This energy is stored in high capacity bioelectrical capacitors running thought the ship as both power conduits and storage devices, before feeding the power to the ship’s separate systems. Propulsion The Spire’s motive systems are essentially unchanged form it’s previous incarnation. Eight aft placed fusion engines grouped in two groups of four propel it thought space along with an array of inertial dampeners and an inertia-less manoeuvring system. Like the Hives before it, the Spire is capable of executing planetary landings, and in fact more capable than it’s predecessor due to the increased amount of empty space which had replaced with compact weapons batteries. Drive exhaust is capable of significant two dimensional thrust vectoring. Transluminal Strike Complement The Spire class hive ship’s main armament is it’s enormous wing of FTL strike craft. The Spire can house thousands of LACs in it’s cramped fighter bays. Launched and retrieved by large military grade culling projectors, eliminating the weakness of dart bays. Used in squadrons of sixteen ships, these are sent out in the hundreds to engage Coalition forces backed up by Aardvark class cruisers. They are also used to scout the galaxy and deploy observational satellites to monitor Coalition activity, as well as functioning as a screen for their mother ships; capable of intercepting incoming munitions and enemy ships and distracting them long enough to let the hive ship escape. Defensive Capabilities As the main population centres of the Wraith, Hives are equipped with defensive technology far in excess of any of its smaller brethren while benefiting from the same technological level. Besides the conventional jamming equipment and aggressive electronic warfare and infiltration suites, the Spire is equipped with a “telepathic disruption array”, a technological adaptation of the Wraith’s natural telepathic abilities used for hunting, capable of reaching across the vast distances of space combat. Under normal circumstances a ship grade shield would almost completely block such interference, but as shield integrity drops, it’s fictiveness increases, making crew nervous, jumpy, spiking when shield are downed and the crew become delusional and paranoid, cutting their combat effectiveness to nearly zero. Against unshielded projectile weapons it uses an array of strategically placed culling beam projectors to dematerialise the projectile and store it harmlessly in it’s buffer. However a Coalition missiles have evolved to deal with this threat by using low intensity shields, the culling array is used to attenuate the power of relativistic rounds and as a speedy collector of organic matter to be used in healing the ship. Against shielded missiles ,and, to a lesser extent, Ancient drone weapons; it uses an array of neutral/charged particle beam weapons similar to the Ancient Defence Satellite (raising questions as to the true origins of either weapon) capable of first draining a missile’s low power shield with the charged mode of operation, then heating it up from the inside on a subatomic level in the neutral mode; devastating it’s electronics and under rare circumstances detonating the payload. Additional Capabilities and Systems The Spire’s internal security unlike it’s predecessors’ is nearly infallible, with strategically placed stun fields and audio/video monitoring devices. And it’s reduced crew spaces mean that corridors and rooms are rarely deserted. The ship’s controlled by a fly-by-thought neural interfaces which only accept input from those who carry Wraith DNA (full strand scan, unlike previous systems is required, locking out even humans with certain Wraith genes), and allows instant communication between mind and machine, going so far as to link individual crew members together in a system more efficient than verbal communication. Like all war time Wraith designs, redundancy is paramount, a necessity during a time and age of relativistic weapons. The ship’s electronic systems are far in advance of human computer software, and are capable of sub-sentient learning and improvement. Self Repair The ship is a biomechanical entity capable of healing from damage over time, and wounded ships that can escape the fight will certainly be back within a week. As such Coalition policy focuses on terminal firepower application, and the complete destruction of any target. A Spire can typically be grown from a biological seed and human host in several months, depending on the condition of local organic compounds and the availability of metallic ores. Through this would only rarely be needed as the loss rate for these behemoths is quite slim. Wraith Ships